King of the Blacks

No, it’s not Barack Obama…at least in this article by columnist Joseph C. Phillips.  But this is a black columnist pointing out what he sees as the biggest obstacle to achievement in the black community.  Using his own son’s experience as an example, his poignant essay asks “How is it that…the ‘king of the Blacks’ is the kid that flunked 8th grade?”

by Joseph C. Phillips at Townhall.com My wife and I have big dreams for our children. We want nothing for them but health, happiness and success and we recognize that a good education can be a step towards realizing that goal. We also demand that our children perform up to their potential. The skills one learns in school – study habits, attention to detail, and meeting deadlines – are essential for success in the work world. In this we are like every other parent in America. However we are also Black parents of a certain generation and so the subtleties of race continue to speak to us and they are very real. Sometimes we are not sure if we are responding atavistically to the faint smell of something in the air or if what we are hearing are the soft echoes of our own imaginations. It’s sometimes impossible to tell, which is why race and issues associated with race (to coin a phrase from the late Ralph Wiley) continue to make Black People want to shout. Last week I had what my parents generation used to call a “come to Jesus meeting” with my 7th grade son. His mid-term report card arrived in the mail. His mother and I were under-whelmed. The comments on my son’s report card indicated that he is under the mistaken impression that school is for socializing and his grades reflect a rather lackluster effort at best. I went “old school:” after a brief lecture he received some tactile encouragement to start taking care of TCB. There are many black students at my sons’ middle school, but he is 1 of only 3 in the highly-gifted magnet program within the school. The HGM is a program restricted to students that score 99.9% on an intellectual assessment test. One of three! That doesn’t leave much wiggle room to be the black kid that can’t cut it, that clowns in class or that falls behind. …More

Lyrics to “Praise Obama” Song

Yesterday we posted the video of elementary school children being trained to worship Barack Hussein Obama. The lyrics to their songs of praise were a little hard to make out. Here are the words the teacher was making these kids memorize and sing:

Song 1: Mm, mmm, mm! Barack Hussein Obama He said that all must lend a hand To make this country strong again Mmm, mmm, mm! Barack Hussein Obama He said we must be fair today Equal work means equal pay Mmm, mmm, mm! Barack Hussein Obama He said that we must take a stand To make sure everyone gets a chance Mmm, mmm, mm! Barack Hussein Obama He said red, yellow, black or white All are equal in his sight Mmm, mmm, mm! Barack Hussein Obama Yes! Mmm, mmm, mm Barack Hussein Obama

Song 2: Hello, Mr. President we honor you today! For all your great accomplishments, we all doth say “hooray!” Hooray, Mr. President! You’re number one! The first black American to lead this great nation! Hooray, Mr. President we honor your great plans To make this country’s economy number one again! Hooray Mr. President, we’re really proud of you! And we stand for all Americans under the great Red, White, and Blue! So continue —- Mr. President we know you’ll do the trick So here’s a hearty hip-hooray —- Hip, hip hooray! Hip, hip hooray! Hip, hip hooray!

Anyone still denying this was indoctrination?

Training the little children…

…to adore their Dear Leader.

I wish I could say this was unbelievable. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to believe.

What the President should have said

On Tuesday, the President gave a pretty good speech to school kids across the nation. If he honestly believed what he said, and if those beliefs were manifested through his actions as President, it’s doubtful he’d be facing the precipitous decline in his poll numbers.

Oh yeah…and he certainly wouldn’t be promoting yet another government entitlement program.

Tonight he stood before Congress and read from his teleprompters once again. If he really wanted to save his presidency, he could have taken the same speech he gave yesterday and adapted it to an adult audience. Something along the lines of the following. (The President’s words I’ve deleted are struck through, the words I’ve added are in bold.)

Click here to read this article without the strike through of remarks I’ve redacted from yesterday’s speech.

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The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia Congress in Washington, DC. And we’ve got students people tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade rich and poor, old and young. I’m glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning the high unemployment rate and our weak economy have you a little nervous.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, “This is no picnic for me either, buster.”

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school looking for work instead of working, having less money to spend on necessities and luxuries. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year as we work our way out of this recession.

Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education this economic crisis. And I’ve But I haven’t talked a lot about personal responsibility.
I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you government helping you, and pushing but I haven’t talked to you to learn about helping yourselves.
I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve. taking care of you, making sure nobody should be held responsible for their irresponsible actions.

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents government, and the best schools intentions in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; stop viewing yourself as a victim; start asking yourself “what can I do to improve my life?”; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education station in life. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide that can make you successful.

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team. Maybe you’ll have to start at the bottom, not at the top of the pay scale.  Maybe you’ll have to give up your bass boat, your all-terrain vehicle, your brand new pickup truck, or even your 52″ TV.   But over time, you can work yourself up the ladder and into a position to once again have those luxuries.

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do be proud of yourself if you work for it, if you earn it through your own efforts instead of taking it from the mouths of others who earned it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school How you deal with your situation today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy that American spirit that lives somewhere within every one of us, that’s passed down from our founding fathers who came here for a better life and out of the wilderness created the greatest country in the world.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on you’re letting down your country.

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school to step up and take responsibility for your own peace and security. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork take the risk, to step into the unknown when it seems more comfortable to stay put and let others foot the bill.

I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.
But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity realized what I’m asking you to realize and I did what it took to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have some of those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults family in your life who give you the support that you need you’d like. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework turning to crime, giving up looking for work, or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education lives and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education life – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as speaking to three potential employers today, to finding a job (even if it’s not the job you want) within the next week or month, or even to volunteer somewhere for a few hours a week to make yourself productive. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn help tutor kids at school, volunteer at your local animal shelter, or become a Big Brother or Sister. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn a job at McDonalds, Wal-Mart, or a local convenience store. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.
I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can can’t be rich and successful without any hard work — that your the only ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.
But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study job you have. You won’t click with every teacher foreman, supervisor, or boss. Not every homework job assignment will seem completely relevant to your life enjoyable or desirable right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, “I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade lose your job, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid unemployable, it just means you need to spend more time studying work hard at finding a new job, or even develop new skills to make yourself more marketable.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult someone you trust – a friend, a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor coworker – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.
It’s the story of students people who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students People who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.
So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn children, spouses, and parents are counting on you. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

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But that’s not what the President said. Instead he stood before America, read the lies scrolling acros his teleprompter, and once again insisted on the need for another huge government entitlement program. A program that will encourage fraud and abuse, and discourage personal responsibility.

But we didn’t really expect anything more.

I won’t be showing the President’s speech today

Just to let everyone know, I teach math in a public high school and I won’t be showing Obama’s speech today.

I just finished reading the speech, and to tell you the truth, I like it. A lot of what he’ll say is the same thing I say day after day to the students. The problem is, he doesn’t practice what he’s preaching. I’ll break this down later because I have to head to work now, but my students will have to watch his speech on their own time if they want to see it.

Today I’m teaching math!

What the President should have said tonight (without strikethrough)

Yesterday, the President gave a pretty good speech. If he honestly believed what he said, and if those beliefs were manifested through his actions as President, it’s doubtful he’d be facing the precipitous decline in his poll numbers.

Oh yeah…and he certainly wouldn’t be promoting yet another government entitlement program.

Tonight he stood before Congress and read from his teleprompters once again. If he really wanted to save his presidency, he could have taken the same speech he gave yesterday and adapted it to an adult audience. Something along the lines of the following. (I’ve replaced some of the President’s words from yesterday’s speech and the words I’ve added are in bold.)

Click here to see this article with the President’s words I’ve replaced struck through.

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The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with Congress in Washington, DC. And we’ve got people tuning in from all across America, rich and poor, old and young. I’m glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you,  the high unemployment rate and our weak economy have you a little nervous.

I know some of you are still adjusting to looking for work instead of working, having less money to spend on necessities and luxuries. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about what’s expected of all of you as we work our way out of this recession.

Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education this economic crisis. But I haven’t talked a lot about personal responsibility.

I’ve talked about  government helping you, but I haven’t talked to you about helping yourselves.

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for. taking care of you, making sure nobody should be held responsible for their irresponsible actions.

But at the end of the day, we can have  the most supportive government, and the best intentions in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you stop viewing yourself as a victim; start asking yourself “what can I do to improve my life?”; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your  station in life. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity that can make you successful.

Maybe you’ll have to start at the bottom, not at the top of the pay scale. Maybe you’ll have to give up your bass boat, your all-terrain vehicle, your brand new pickup truck, or even your 52″ TV. But over time, you can work yourself up the ladder and into a position to once again have those luxuries.

And no matter what you do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll  be proud of yourself if you work for it, if you earn it through your own efforts instead of taking it from the mouths of others who earned it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military?  You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country.  How you deal with your situation today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You’ll need that American spirit that lives somewhere within every one of us, that’s passed down from our founding fathers who came here for a better life and out of the wilderness created the greatest country in the world.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that  you’re letting down your country.

Now I know it’s not always easy to to step up and take responsibility for your own peace and security. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to take the risk, to step into the unknown when it seems more comfortable to stay put and let others foot the bill.

I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I realized what I’m asking you to realize and I did what it took to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have some of those advantages. Maybe you don’t have family in your life who give you the support that you’d like. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for turning to crime, giving up looking for work, or having a bad attitude.  That’s no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That’s what people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their lives and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your life – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as speaking to three potential employers today, to finding a job (even if it’s not the job you want) within the next week or month, or even to volunteer somewhere for a few hours a week to make yourself productive. Maybe you’ll decide to help tutor kids at school, volunteer at your local animal shelter, or become a Big Brother or Sister. Maybe you’ll decide to take a job at McDonalds, Wal-Mart, or a local convenience store.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can can’t be rich and successful  — that  the only ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every  job you have. You won’t click with every foreman, supervisor, or boss. Not every  job assignment will seem  enjoyable or desirable right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, “I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade lose your job, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid unemployable, it just means you need to spend more time studying work hard at finding a new job, or even develop new skills to make yourself more marketable.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult someone you trust – a friend, a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor coworker – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of  people who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. People who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your children, spouses, and parents are counting on you. But you’ve got to do your part. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

---

But that’s not what the President said. Instead he stood before America, read the lies scrolling acros his teleprompter, and once again insisted on the need for another huge government entitlement program. A program that will encourage fraud and abuse, and discourage personal responsibility.

But we didn’t really expect anything more.

Florida School Suspends Young ROTC Patriot

After observing a female muslim student refuse to stand for the pledge of allegiance, a 16-year old ROTC member in Spring Hill, FL was suspended for 5 days for telling the irreverent student to “Take that thing off your head and act like you’re proud to be an American.”

No threats were made, no violence ensued, and the purported “victim” didn’t even complain. An oversensitive teacher overheard the remarks and reported the young girl who loves her country to the principal’s office.

from World Net Daily Maybe it’s because her dad served in the U.S. Marines … or because her high school mascot is a fierce-looking eagle … or because she plans to enlist in the Army next summer after graduation to defend her country … whatever the reason, when Heather Lawrence saw a fellow student refuse to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and recite it with the class, the 16-year-old Junior ROTC member saw a teachable moment and took it. And for that, she’s been suspended five days. … Although the student walked away and filed no complaint, a teacher overheard Lawrence’s comment and reported her to school administrators. On Friday, Lawrence was called to Assistant Principal Steve Crognale’s office and her father was called and informed she would be suspended for five days. …Read full article

You can email Assistant Principal Steve Crognagle and Principal Susan Duval or contact them on Monday by phone at (352)797-7010 or fax at (352)797-7110.

Let them know we’re tired of our schools being used to promote Muslim ideology and culture at the expense of our own.

You did it: KS teacher rehired!

Great job and many thanks to all who stood up for Lawrence High School history teacher Tim Latham, whose contract wasn’t renewed due to his conservative beliefs.  The pressure you put on resulted in Mr. Latham being rehired!

Mr. Latham’s response:  “I couldn’t be more pleased with this outcome. While I am happy to have this behind me, and look forward to returning to LHS next fall, I will always be grateful to my students for actually putting what I teach into practice.”

I, too, am grateful to Mr. Latham’s students, several of whom created the Facebook group, Save Mr.Latham, Lawrence High History Teacher, which counts almost 2,000 members after only a few days.  These students refused to stand by and let their successors at Lawrence High be deprived of, as one student put it, “…a really good teacher.”

Statement from Tim Latham

From Save Mr.Latham, Lawrence High History Teacher

STATEMENT FROM MR. LATHAM:

There has been a rumor going around that the main reason I was non-renewed is because I supposedly compared Obama to Hitler. I have been receiving some pretty nasty e-mails about it so I feel I must speak.

This is completely and totally false. I NEVER compared Obama to Hitler.

This is what happened and where the rumor comes from:

In a good GOVERNMENT class you learn about ALL forms of government. On one particular day we were discussing the various forms of government; i.e. Democracy, Socialism, Communism, Fascism, etc. The difference between dictators, Prime Ministers, and Presidents, etc. We talked about many differences between the Democratic and Republican platforms. You have to understand I had VERY GOOD students who asked great questions leading to great discussions.

As we were talking about fascism (a gov’t that allows private property ownership but maintains strict control over banking and major industry) a student asked me what governments were fascist. The term was familiar but he couldn’t remember why. I pointed out that Benito Mussolin (Italy) and Adolf Hitler (Germany) of WWII were the most famous fascist dictators. Another student made a comment asking how someone like Hitler gets in power. I explained that he had actually been DEMOCRACTICALLY ELECTED… something many people don’t realize. He then became a dictator and took over control of everything. Another student asked how someone like Hitler could get elected? I stated that people didn’t realize he was going to become the person he did. Germany was suffering worse than any country in the world from the Great Depression (economic crisis), Germany was still angry over the Treaty of Versailles (WWI) and Hitler was a very good public speaker and told the people exactly what they wanted to hear. He made a lot of promises and appealed to the masses.

About 15 minutes later into the class we were discussing McCain and Obama again and what people liked about them, what each ones chances were of getting elected, etc. And yes, I did mention, that the best thing going for Obama was that he was an eloquent speaker, people were unhappy with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the economy was looking bad. ALL points being covered in the news every day, by every political pundit in the world.

There is a girl in that particular class who LOVED to argue and who was a major Obama supporter. Made for good debates sometimes, sometimes frustration. This is one of those frustration times. THE STUDENT HERSELF is the one who, after I made the above statement about Obama, that said “so you’re comparing Obama to Hitler?” As soon as she said it, before I could even speak, several other students (who were used to argueing with her) stated that is not what I said. I myself repeatedly said no I was not comparing the two. I did admit that the “situation” for them to get elected is similiar but I in no way thought that Obama was in any way like Hitler. I repeated that statement more than once since she wanted to argue it, no I WAS NOT comparing Obama to Hitler. I pointed out that those situations are common in many elections; i.e. using the economy, an unpopular war (see Vietnam), etc. in order to gain support for an election. Not good enough, she went straight to the Asst. Prinicipal and said I was picking on Obama and comparing him to Hitler. I was called in, I explained everything that happened exactly like I have just stated, and I thought, that was that. Evidently not.

That is the true story. You decide for yourself.

Tim Latham

Teacher, father of 3, fired for conservative views

UPDATE: Tim Latham and students will be on Fox & Friends at 7:45 AM tomorrow, Monday, June 15, 2009

UPDATE 2:  Statement from Tim Latham

UPDATE 3:  Latham rehired.

Though this was his first year at Lawrence High School, he’s been teaching History for the past 19 years. A self-professed liberal student who graduated this spring says, “It’s really disappointing because he’s a really good teacher. It doesn’t seem fair. Why would they let a good teacher go?” But let him go they did, after repeatedly chastising him for being critical of President Obama and even for having a McCain/Palin bumper sticker on his car!

Tim Latham states he was also dressed down by his assistant principal Jan Gentry for content on his school website, which she deemed “too patriotic.”   But liberals needn’t worry now because his links to different branches of the US military and the military academies have been removed from the site.  The Left no longer needs to worry that his pages may encourage high school students to serve their country.

While some of his pages have been left in tact, clicking on the “What I Think” tab now yields an empty page.  Another tab on his home page labeled “Terrorism” also contains nothing.  Apparently, school officials have scrubbed his pages of anything that might let young minds experience something other than the liberal education establishment view of our world.  God only knows that they could just get the idea that Conservatism isn’t the evil so many educators wish to brainwash the children to believe.

You can help by joining the “Save Mr. Latham, Lawrence High History Teacher” group on Facebook now.  Already, 655 have joined to show their support!  There’s also a discussion thread on the group site to leave your comments.  You can also sign a petition to help Mr. Latham get his job back.

Read more on this story here.

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